The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - What is a clinical associate psychologist? (CAP)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi there, it's Marianne here. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to quickly let you know about something exciting that's happening right now. If you've ever wondered how to create income that works for you, rather than constantly trading your time for money, then you'll love the Race to Recurring Revenue Challenge with my business mentor, Lisa Johnson. This challenge is designed to help you build sustainable income streams. And whether you're an aspiring psychologist, a mental health professional, or in a completely different field,

Starting point is 00:00:32 the principles can work for you. There are also wonderful prizes to be won directly by Lisa herself. And if you join the challenge by my link, you can be in with a chance of winning a one-to-one hours coaching with me, Dr. Marianne Trent. Do you want to know more? Of course you do. Head to my link tree, Dr. Marianne Trent, or check out my social media channels, or send me a quick DM and I'll get you all the details. Right, let's get on with today's episode. Coming up today, we are diving back in for a look at the role of clinical associate

Starting point is 00:01:06 psychologists. What is it? How do you train? Do you get paid? All the details you need to know. I hope you find it so useful. Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent. I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. Now we are going to be chatting today with a fellow qualified clinical psychologist who has a very different role to me and I just love the diversity of the profession. Hope that you will find this really useful. We have spoken about the role of clinical associate psychologist before. That was about two years ago with Elise Dyer, and we were speaking about children and young people. So if you might find that episode helpful, please do dig that out. Otherwise, I hope you find this really useful and I look forward to

Starting point is 00:01:56 catching up with you at the end of this. Hi, just want to welcome along our guest for today, Dr. Dawn Reeves. Hi, Dawn. thanks for joining us. Hi, you're welcome, it's nice to be here. Thank you for your time. So we're getting together today because you are a qualified clinical psychologist but also we're thinking today about your current role which is training clinical associate psychologists or CAPs as we kind of think of them in psychology? Yeah so I work in EPUT and we have a CAP apprenticeship training program and we run that in partnership with Essex University so it's an it's an 18-month program but just 12 months of those cover the academic aspect of the program and throughout those 18 months you should be on a work placement you're employed in an NHS usually it's an NHS setting and you're

Starting point is 00:02:55 supervised by a clinical psychologist. Great so always supervised by a clinical psychologist. Yes yeah I believe you can it can also be a registered psychologist so it could be that it'd be a counseling psychologist you need to i believe the stipulation is that you have to be hcpc registered as a practicing psychologist okay so we're looking for the practitioner psychologist so um you know sometimes when people are thinking i would love to be a clinical psychologist one day they can be dissuaded by being supervised by different discipline but i was actually supervised by a forensic psychologist as the role before i got onto training and so in my experience it's the practitioner psychologist element that's

Starting point is 00:03:38 really important rather than necessarily which discipline it is. Absolutely, yeah. So it's about being registered and recognised profession within psychology. Yeah. Could you, just before we kind of really think and delve deep into the CAP role and your role within that, could you tell us a little bit about your background, how you got into psychology and where you trained, those sort of things, if that feels okay. Okay, so way, way back as an undergraduate student, I went to Brunel University and back then they used to run a very thin sandwich undergraduate degree, which would be six months study and six months work placement. You did that for three years and then your final fourth year was b1 academic year so there were often a lot of placements for prisons or student psychologists in prison so i worked in a prison for about six months on a sex offender treatment

Starting point is 00:04:37 program so that gave me an insight into that kind of more um I suppose, clinical work, but I did most of the assessment work. So when I graduated, I wanted to work in that area, but I didn't manage to be successful in getting through the selection process for working in the prison service because back then it would be a master's programme. Then I thought about doing educational psychology. At that point, my psychology degree didn't have enough maths, I believe was their point, about why I couldn't train as a teacher, which you needed to do to be an educational psychologist.

Starting point is 00:05:30 And then I started to apply for assistant psychology posts so I managed to get one of those and learnt about how you could apply for clinical training from other assistants that I was working with so I gave that a shot and I was very lucky that I actually got accepted on a course, a Salomon's course, my first application. So I think a large part of that was because I had done that work in the prison service and in another placement on a third year I'd also worked in educational psychology department so I had that sort of work experience before I actually graduated which I think made a difference um so yeah after I finished my doctorate I worked and specialized with older people so I've worked in different community mental health teams some in London, Leicester and in Bedfordshire and I've always been involved in

Starting point is 00:06:14 some level of sort of teaching or education when I was a qualified psychologist I sort of would do some of the what they call honorary lecturing in doctorate psychology courses and give some workshops on older people and mental health because that was my specialty. And I worked for a time in Saudi Arabia for a couple of years on a clinical psychology program there helping to develop that so does that give a good summary it really does what a varied career you've had and you know I just I never I've never stopped getting blown away by you know the variety people have within their career and I can just imagine all of these different experiences just, you know, crystallising in your brain as kind of experience, you know,

Starting point is 00:07:09 working in kind of forensic services and then working in Saudi, such novel but important things that you learn so much about working with people, working with systems, working with teams, working about with clinical populations. You know, we really do do such varied work, don't we, in our profession? Absolutely. There won't ever be, I don't think there's ever a repetitive day. And I think that's what, for me, made psychology attractive and probably what's kept me in the role for this long is that I don't feel one week is the same to the next week and you

Starting point is 00:07:46 can get involved in or be asked as well to get involved into so many pieces of work educational work training work there's research there's therapeutic work there's staff work and teams work organizational work so you can sort of find where your interests lie um i think it's not a dull job i don't think i don't know what you think oh it's not at all no i agree and i think people that often don't understand what we do in clinical psychology might say isn't it just loads of people moaning all the time and I'm like no it's not that even when you're doing kind of therapy or direct work with clients it's not that it isn't that like if that's all it is then you're not doing your role properly like you know it's not a it's not a passive process is it should be really active and you should be constantly trying to, in my experience, constantly trying to kind of fit a bespoke approach for this client, which means that it's a very active process for the professional, but also a really active dynamic process for the client.

Starting point is 00:08:57 It isn't just a venting space to go and moan. Like, in my experience, that's not at all the case yeah you've got you've i mean if you're going to get anything out of psychology you have to put something in don't you i mean i think a large part of a lot of psychologists they are kind of trainers and teachers because they're trying to help when you're doing individual work individuals learn different ways of doing things to try and help with whatever situation has brought them to your your service so yeah lovely so tell us about um your current role then um kind of working with with trainee caps okay so um the cap role is relatively new.

Starting point is 00:09:56 And I work in an NHS trust, EPUT, and we have created a CAP apprenticeship program. What does that stand for, Dawn? What does EPUT stand for? Essex Partnership University Trust. Thank you. I work in a training department, so they've developed the MSc for the CAP, Clinical Associate in Psychology. That's in partnership with Essex University. So I have worked on that programme since it began.

Starting point is 00:10:28 And I'd say we're developing it with each cohort we're now on coming up to cohort five we um we started with focusing on adult mental health caps so they were in placements in sort of nh NHS adult focus services. And for us, that was across Essex and Hertfordshire. So it's not necessary that you have to have worked in EPIRT, Essex Partnership University Trust, but it's kind of around geographically which programmes nearby because there's quite a few programmes around the country now. So I've helped with setting up the CAPS program.

Starting point is 00:11:09 I initially started with being a module lead for developing one of the modules which was on assessment formulation and presentation. I'm currently a deputy lead on that program, so that can involve lots of different roles, helping continue to develop the course, be a course tutor. So you work with CAPs and their placement supervisors, which is actually quite an important part of the CAP programme. You have to have...

Starting point is 00:11:44 Yep, so there's a tripartite review that has to be scheduled for every 12 weeks during the 18-month program. And that's done with the student, the clinical supervisor, and the course tutor. So that's just to keep an eye on what's going on in placement how the student is progressing in learning objectives through their workplace and adjusting for any issues that might that might be coming up as well that sounds really important it was bringing back slightly horrifying memories of being a trainee and having mid-placement reviews and you know that question where it gets asked is there any chance that the trainee could fail this placement is it that kind of thing like but you're doing every 12 weeks it is yeah and the 12 weeks is to you know if there are any

Starting point is 00:12:35 early indications that the placement might not be going well it's about figuring out what we can do about that because something that can come up is about opportunities for learning. So if a student, but most of the time it's students and supervisors, find that maybe there's not as many cases available to them to carry out some of the objectives that they need to complete for their training. So we can think through what other opportunities there might be I mean so is it be better to give an idea so if we for instance have a student who's working in an assessment only service a part of the CAP trainings you have to do some amount of intervention work you have to learn intervention skills so it might be that that's difficult for a supervisor and the

Starting point is 00:13:28 student to access those sort of cases so we can use meetings like that to think about how that can be done great thank you and what what is involved in a typical kind of trainee or even for that matter qualified CAP intervention what might be typical? Gosh I don't think there would be a typical because it really depends on the service so CAPS I think that's the distinguishing part about CAPS training is they're trained into a service so if you think about clinical psychology doctorate, you get trained. Typically, you will be trained in different sort of services across those three years. You'll be having usually a six month placement and coming in and out. I know some courses now, the placements are for a bit longer, but typically it would be about six months. So with the CAP, they're in one service, they're employed in the service, and it's the hope is that that CAP would continue in that service once they've qualified. So the service is training them up to be, you know, skilled in that particular area of work.

Starting point is 00:14:37 So you can think that the different services that we have our CAP students in at the moment can be learning disability services, adult mental health services, health psychology services. We've got some older adult services, autism assessment services. So it's a real mix. So each CAP is going to have a very different experience of their training from the perspective of their actual placement. Although the learning objectives are all going to be the same. So each placement has to meet specific learning objectives set out by the apprenticeship standards and BPS standards as well. Great. Thank you for that. And am I right in thinking that it's not only is it a master's programme, but it's also a funded programme as well. Great thank you for that and am I right in thinking that it's not only is it a

Starting point is 00:15:26 master's program but it's also a funded program as well so you get paid to do your master's and paid to do your training so it really is incredible as an opportunity for people. Yes so it's a fully paid master's apprenticeship so the apprenticeship part of it is where the funding comes from so your master's is paid for you're not paying for the master's and you're in paid employment you are employed by the trust that you are in a placement with so you're not employed by for instance EPIRT the NHS trust that's providing this training program, for instance, the one I work with, you're employed by your service that you're working into. So yeah, you're employed at a band five, perhaps I should say that as well. So as an apprentice, you'll be employed a band five.

Starting point is 00:16:16 Once you qualify as a CAP, you should then go up to be employed as a band six. In terms of thinking about where someone's level will remain, there's no reason why, for instance, as a CAP, you wouldn't then perhaps progress into the banding once you're qualified, but that would depend obviously on further training in England. As far as I know in Wales, I think they've recently started or they're developing their CAPS training program. And I believe they're going to start working at band seven once they're qualified.

Starting point is 00:16:51 So there is some variation in the different regions. But in England, you would start at band six once you're qualified. Right. It's so brilliant and actually in terms of you know diversity and inclusion and reducing inequality in psychology if you know because a master's is not a cheap thing you know and if you're then not able to if you're not able to work either because you're studying for your master's it's it's really difficult so this is a really wonderful way of people being able to access higher education. And they may choose to stay as a CAP, you know, that might just be,

Starting point is 00:17:30 I guess that's the trust's hope that they will just stay as a qualified CAP, really. But it's such a brilliant and inclusive way of being able to access a master's qualification. Yes, I mean, I think services are very different as well in what they're doing with their caps once they qualify so yeah absolutely services would like them to stay and work as a cap but I know that services are actually investing in their qualified caps as well and providing access to further training so there's more specialist training. There is a limit when you're qualifying as a cap because it's an NHS England funded apprenticeship. That means that you can't access any further NHS funded training for another two years once you qualify.

Starting point is 00:18:17 But if you were to pay for a course yourself or if your service decided to pay for it and budget for that, you could still go and do it. So you're not restricted in that way. But there's a limit, you know, there's a limit in terms of the amount of funding you can get from the NHS. I hope that makes sense. It really does. It really does. Yes. So in 2020, it was announced by Health Education England that that limit would be around. And it was almost around immediately but there was some petitioning done it was led by Erkan White who was a an aspiring psychologist at the time and is now a trainee and that was overhauled and delayed for a couple of years but

Starting point is 00:18:58 certainly that is in force now. So in the beginning we had some caps that that didn't apply to. So they were able to, I believe, access funding sooner. But the caps that are on training now, there's that two year limit. Yeah. And if things don't go well, you know, do people sometimes choose to stop in the middle of their training? Or sometimes do they not meet the criteria? So they're in the middle of their training or sometimes do they not meet the criteria so they're in essence kind of retired from the system has that happened so far yes i mean there is flexibility within the apprenticeship rules you can actually take a break in learning so if you find that whatever circumstances are going on that mean you can't carry on with your training at the moment. It could be through health or life circumstances.

Starting point is 00:19:50 It could be the placement itself. You can actually request a break in learning. And we have had examples of that. And I believe you can have a break up to 12 months, up to a year. Typically, you know, the person will carry on working in some capacity, just not in that cap role. And then you can come back into the program at the point at which you left. So in terms of the learning stage that you left, you will have to, in those situations, make your own efforts to find a new placement. So the course could help give you advice and guidance, but ultimately the student is the one that would be responsible for looking to see what other CAP apprenticeships are being advertised and to apply for those and hopefully be successful and the advantage for those employing services are that this CAP student

Starting point is 00:20:46 won't have to take as long to finish because they would have done part of their CAP training before then. Yeah so there's some flexibility much like any sort of educational program you can actually take breaks in learning so that's in a way that's been quite a revelation to me because I never knew these things when I wasn't working in education. So if, for example, a trainee clinical psychologist started year one or year two and were driving hours and hours and hours of placement each day and they thought that might be sustainable. But it obviously we know that that was always going to be a tricky ask there isn't that flexibility to example you know move from an edinburgh course to a leicester course at the moment um because they're entirely separate and that's really tricky because when you're deciding to leave a trainee psychologist role you're essentially saying i'm i'm done or i will start again somewhere else and it sounds like there's

Starting point is 00:21:41 more flexibility in a trainee cap role yes i think there's i mean i don't know of any examples where people have actually switched from one program to another but it is possible in theory because each program is having to follow the same like learning objectives it's quite a specific expectations from the apprenticeship side and the bps side of what actually they need to learn so i guess it would be more difficult if they were being trained in one of the more specialist areas you know like learn disabilities or older adults or health if they then tried to work get back into a program that was mainly adult focused um i'm not sure if there are any other courses that have had this happen yet, but I'm sure there's room for precedent. I think it would be more easy to come back into the same

Starting point is 00:22:31 course, but having taken a break and changing workplace. So we definitely have an example of that in our programme. Somebody's taken a break and then come back in later on in a new placement. Great. Thank you. And just before we finish, have you got any of your top tips, like even just a top tip for how to reduce burnout in aspiring psychologists? Because we do ask a lot of our aspiring psychologists at times, don't we? So I would say to bear in mind that psychology is not everything i know when a person is younger or when they're quite focused on an ambition and um have like really clear plans of how they're going to get there um it can kind of take over a bit because it is a it can be a

Starting point is 00:23:22 very challenging uh profession to get into. But I would say to everybody, don't give up. You know, if that's really what you want to do, stay focused on it. But, you know, enjoy other aspects of your life as well. Psychologists are better when they're more rounded people and when they have particular interests in certain areas. So that's going to help you have a longer career if you aren't just solely focused on psychology

Starting point is 00:23:53 in all the things you do. So I would say you've got to have, looking after your health in terms of physical health, looking after your mental health in terms of well-being keep good friends you know have hobbies a range of things that you're interested in it also makes you I think it makes you a good practitioner too if you've got other things that you're involved in it certainly helps with conversation you know if you're a well-rounded person you're going to be able to

Starting point is 00:24:25 that your clients are going to are going to get that impression you're going to find a relationship building a lot easier I hope that answers the question it really does yeah you've got to be a human first and a psychologist second haven't you and it's about being personable because you know those conversations where you're walking from from reception to clinic room you know it's about being personable because you know those conversations where you're walking from from reception to clinic room you know that's where you're supposed to be a little bit more natural a little bit more human um and I I don't know what your experiences are but I found since the pandemic that there's been much more person in clinicians because it's really been a leveling experience that really does put us all kind of in a similar position of uncertainty and threat and menace and and all of that and that that really

Starting point is 00:25:14 did affect it i think yeah everybody that i've spoken to has sort of said yeah it is it is different now it is just a bit different i think it gave people the time to reflect on you know what people say the work-life balance work-life home balance family relationships downtime um how important it is to keep that balance going because if you're giving too much at work you're not you haven't got that time to recharge yourself um you're going to be a better clinician for your clients and you're going to be a better colleague for your people you work with um if you've got that sort of balance um it's not always going to be perfect but if you've got it in mind of why it's important to keep it going um that's going to help you a long way from trying to protect yourself from

Starting point is 00:26:06 burnout and always take your annual leave as well that would be another thing i say i mean annual leave is there for you to take at regular points i know it's easy to think you know you just want to um keep it for like one long chunk but my my advice would be, you know, take bits of time off regularly throughout the whole year and do something that's completely unrelated to your work, unrelated to psychology. Have some fun. Recharge that aspect of yourself that's not the psychologist. Yeah, I so agree. Such brilliant advice. Thank you so much for your time in speaking with us today, Dawn. It's been a really, really interesting, insightful episode. You're welcome. I hope it can give some of your

Starting point is 00:26:51 listeners, your viewers, some confidence and encouragement to keep going with, you know, their ideas about becoming a psychologist and where they can perhaps train in different roles, different psychological roles. Absolutely, it absolutely will do. Thank you again. You're welcome. Thank you for watching and thank you so much for my guest time talking through this important area which I really do think is an exciting development for psychology. So it has been around a few years now, but hopefully it will become a really viable and enjoyable career for people and not just seen as a hop step and a jump to be able to get on to do a doctorate. I'd love to know what you think about this. Has this inspired you to look

Starting point is 00:27:45 for trainee cap roles? Do come and let me know in the Aspiring Psychologist community free Facebook group. I'd also love it if you take a moment to rate and review us on either Apple podcasts or Spotify, as that helps the podcast to be reaching a wider audience. Whatever time of year it is, it's always a good time to dive into the books Clinical Psychologist Collective and the Aspiring Psychologist Collective 2. Thank you so much for being part of my world. I will look forward to bringing the next episode to you which will be available from 10am on Saturdays on YouTube and from 6am on Mondays as an mp3. Thank you again and be kind to yourselves. With this podcast at your side, you'll be on your way to being qualified. It's the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast with Dr. Marianne Trent.

Starting point is 00:29:02 My name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological wellbeing practitioner. I read the Clinical Psychologist Collective book. I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist. It just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one and this kind of filled me with confidence that no I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself so if you're feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist I definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will be okay but trust me you will not put the book down once you start.

The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - What is a clinical associate psychologist? (CAP)

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.